Character Generator

I always hated making 3rd edition characters. Seemed like there were a million and one things to remember to do. If your like me and hate all the tasks this site http://dnd3rd.sourceforge.net/ will help. Its a fully integrated character generator. Of course that wont help you if your group has moved on to 4th edition or is still stuck in the 90's with 2nd or 1st.

Song for Ulvaak

I love Allie Goertz’s rendition of “Song for Ulvaak”. With Megan, Allie put together a wonderful song based on lyrics from Patton Oswalt's book, “Zombie, Spaceship, Wasteland”.The melody is softly stirring and the lyrics well written a true gem.

Dungeons and Dragons Cartoon

Anyone else remember this cartoon? Like all 1980's cartoons it was seriously low budget and poorly written. I remember it used to come on before the Snorks and after GI Joe on Saturday mornings. I wasn't totally into it like some of the other cartoons but it was ok. Looking back at it the D&D nerd in be keeps saying OMG they don't have a cleric they are screwed lol.

Custom Dice

Looking for a great birthday gift for the D&D nerd in your life? There's a great selection for custom cast dice over at shapeways. They do custom plastic and metal casting. So custom that you can send them a black and white outline and they will cast a necklace or whatever for you. If your into 3d modeling you can get whatever you want made. The reason I mentioned birthdays is these custom dice aren't cheap the lowest range from $2 to $20 each. The most expensive are some Puzzle dice that clock in at a massive $500. That said there are many neat dice to choose for under $10. Some are very cool and would make a neat desk toy or shelf object. Here's a couple of the neat ones I found.

Steam Punk 12 Sided

Steam Punk 10 sided

Alien Theme 20 Sided

Crystal 10 Sided

Companion Cube Dice

Harry Potter Deathly Hallows Themed

new controller from madcats

More gaming news

Just saw these new Controllers from Madcats you can pull them apart and customize the pieces. so for instance you really hate the feel of the PS3 D pad swap in a Xbox analog stick. you can even adjust how much they weigh.

I'm really impressed and would love to get one of these for street fighter and a few other games. I hate the feel of the PS3 pad when trying to pull of a move in SF and I'm not a big fan of tournament pads either too big and clunky for me. These may be the solution for that problem.

Neverwinter

Wizards just released the Neverwinter campaign setting last week. Its based around the region of forgotten realms that was the setting for both videos games and goes more in depth about the places and people of the area then the basic forgotten realms campaign book does. I was never really a fan of NWN but a lot of D&D folks still play the game. I think one of its biggest draws was the customize-ability and the fact that you could program your own encounters and run it with friends.
heres the wizards promo

A heroic campaign set in one of the most popular regions of the Forgotten Realms world.
Reduced to ruins by supernatural cataclysms, Neverwinter rises from the ashes to reclaim its title as the Jewel of the North. Yet even as its citizens return and rebuild, hidden forces pursue their own goals and vendettas, any one of which could tear the city apart.
Neverwinter has long been one of the most popular locations in the Forgotten Realms campaign world. This book presents a complete heroic-tier campaign setting that plunges players into the politics, skullduggery, and peril of a city on the brink of destruction or greatness. A wealth of information about Neverwinter and its environs is provided: maps, quests, encounters, and statistics — everything a Dungeon Master needs for his heroic tier adventures.

Item Details
Item Code: 317290000
Release Date: August 16, 2011
Page Count: 224
Price: $39.95 C$46.00
ISBN: 978-0-7869-5814-6

XXX plays a mage

who knew that Vin Diesl played D&D. Not so nerdy now huh jocks.

Happy 1/2 birthday rift!

Hey this isnt really about D&D but if your into MMO games and were thinking about playing rift now is a great time to join up. Rift is celebrating its 1/2 birthday and is letting people play for free and giving out all kinds of bonuses for a while like

XP from kills: Level faster!

More Planarite:

Favor from kills: Massacre your way to some new equipment!

Plaques of Achievement: It's time for that new dungeon gear set!

Marks of Ascension: Pick up some new raid loot!

Guild XP: Level your guild faster!

Prestige from kills: Earn new ranks faster!

So If your looking to try a new game its a great time to look into rift

Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Emporium

Im excited about the new Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Emporium book coming out next month. I love treasure books. Im a sucker for them. the product description from wizards is

"Few wizards know more about magic than the mighty Mordenkainen, whose arcane achievements are without peer. He’s the Archmage of Adventure . . . and no stranger to unearthing hidden lore. Stand aside, Tenser! Back to the books, Otiluke! Few can match Mordenkainen’s collection of magic items. Still, he hardly seems the type to settle down and open a magic shop. And yet . . .
Welcome to Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Emporium, a wondrous collection of magic items—each one with a story to tell. This tome provides Dungeon Masters with a ready assortment of treasures to tempt greedy players, along with historical nuggets and alluring adventure hooks that set these items apart from your run-of-the-mill flaming sword or bag of holding. This book adds rich flavor to the treasures and trinkets presented within, and a dash of inspiration for Dungeon Masters looking to liven up a monster’s trove. Hold on to your magic hats—everything must go!
Item Details
Item Code: 28069000Release Date: September 20, 2011 Page Count: 160 Price: $29.95 C$34.95 ISBN: 978-0-7869-5744-6"

I for one cant wait to snatch it up when it comes out! 

Class Warfare - Fighters

Dungeons and dragons is in its fourth edition now and has been for several years. Through those years the basic classes that started the game Fighter, Magic User (now called Wizards) Cleric, Thief (rogue) have remained. Looking back how have these core ideas changed over nearly 40 years of product evolution? Lets take a look at the lowly fighter.

Fighters

1st edition - The most basic class, best at swinging a sword and had the most hit points, was one of two classes that could use plate armor
2nd edition - Still very basic, had the best Thac0 and could wear plate most fighters stood around and hit stuff a lot.
3rd edition - Fighters were the go to class for getting tons of feats. Still got plate armor still got the best hit bonuses still got the most HP. 3rd did give them more options than "Hit the monster with my sword" but not by much.
4th edition - Fighters now have tons of options just like everyone else. They can choose to be offensive or defensive depending on how they choose their stats and skills and they get some really nice knockdowns and conditional abilities. One thing they lost from all the previous editions was the ability to wear plate. They get up to scale now and can easily upgrade to plate with a single feat.

Fighters have always been the core learners class in dungeons and dragons. Whenever you got a new players who didn't want a bunch of complicated rules when they started the fighter was a safe bet. True they were a bit under-powered at higher levels but at first with that high AC and higher hit points they were great to have around especially when the wizard shot his one magic missile and hid behind a tree :)

With the advent of fourth edition fighters don't seem to be getting the same respect they used to. True there are a lot of shiny choices to choose from (especially if you add in PH2 and PH3 and various other sources)

The four at wills for fighters are Cleave, Reaping Strike, Sure Strike, and Tide of Iron.

Cleave - Hits two adjacent foes, second damage is low. Attacks AC Rating ***/5

Reaping Strike - Standard attack roll but if you miss you still get some damage. Attacks AC. You have to use a two hander to get the miss damage so no good for sword and board types. Rating: **/5 (very situational)

Sure Strike - An attack that gives you +2 to hit. Attacks AC. To me this is the gem of the warriors at wills. It makes the warrior attack as though he were four levels higher than he actually is. Add in a flanking bonus and your going to be hitting alot with this one. Sure the damage is low but constant damage is better then adding that strength mod every third attack. Rating: ****/5

Tide of iron - Lets you push an enemy and slide into his spot, if your a player that likes to set up flanks and advantages for your friends this at will is your best friend. not only do you get to push them but you get to stay base to base to help with the flank. rating ****/5

Fighters are a solid choice for players that like to protect their friends from monsters and generally irritate the DM with trips and pushes.

The Lies of Locke Lemora

I'm an avid fantasy book reader. I find its important as a game master to read a lot since it gives you new ideas and helps you think in ways you hadn't before. Im not advocating swiping entire plots or anything but scenes that were particularly apt or characters you really likes can make appearances under new pseudonymous. The book I'm currently reading is the Lies of Locke Lemora by Scott Lynch. It is probably one of the best books I've ever read about thieves and the rogues life. It's sort of Oceans 11 meets Oliver Twist in the Venetian middle ages. Lynches system of bosses and underlings and the whole prose of the work makes me think that he will be a big name in fantasy in years to come. Lies has already been optioned for a movie and I for one cant wait to see them do this excellent tale of betrayal and the gentlemen bastards justice.

Top 10 Dumbest monsters from 1st edition Monster Manual 5-1

Number 5

If you don’t know why Toothy here is on the list, it’s his name. Again stretching for water monsters, his name is like they tossed a bag of scrabble tiles and named it what came out. Either that or it’s something from Lovecraft. These guys actually got reprinted in second and third editions with the same name. I imagine a game where these are in a module GM:” You are approached by a vicious looking Isik.. Isi.. Tooth fish”

Number 4

Otyugh also suffers from scrabble bag disease but he’s got more wrong with him. He literally lives in poop. The only way your characters will run afoul of him is if they see the big pile of monster droppings and say “Hey let’s go poke around in that.”

Number 3

Peryton was compiled by placing animal pictures on a dart board and tossing them with a blind fold. He has a human shadow because Gygax took a dart while getting a soda. That’s the only explanation I can come up for this freak of nature. He’s a deer eagle with the shadow of a man. Jorge Luis Borges was actually the person who created this creature in his 1957 book “Book of imaginary Beings” but it’s still absurd.

Number 2

Thought eater… magic psychic duck… It’s completely useless unless you happen to have a psionic character and anyone who ever read the rules for 1^st and 2^nd edition psionics and understood them had far better things to do in the 80’s, like brain surgery or rocket science. I joke, they weren’t that complicated but they were needlessly overpowered unless you based your campaign around it (dark sun) and had their own weird set of rules to play by.

Number 1

Brain Mole let me count the ways I despise you. First you’re a psionic creature, see Thought Eater, second you’re a stupid mole, third you managed to get reprinted in second and third edition, fourth YOU’RE A STUPID MOLE. I really hate this creature. It’s another one of those monsters that unless you happen to have a psi character around is completely useless. Even if you do happen to have a psi, using it kind of feels like a jerk move. You’re picking on the guy cause of the class he plays; it’s a no win really.

If your wondering where 10-6 are click here

Top 10 Dumbest monsters from 1st edition Monster Manual 10-6

Number 10

Apatosaurus and various other dinosaurs take up about 2 pages of the Monster Manual. Why? Has anyone ever used these? I’m pretty sure the game is called Dungeons and Dragons not Land of the Lost. These would have been better suited to be detailed, as many monsters are, in theme specific modules like a Land of the Lost or Journey to the Center of the Earth.

Number 9

Ogre Mage is a good monster but my problem with him is he is called a “Japanese Ogre” in the description. None of the other monsters have nationalities. We don’t see Irish leprechauns or Serbian Night Hags. Why does the Ogre Mage get this special modifier? My only thought is perhaps it’s to define him as not a regular ogre that just knows magic, if that’s the case he should have probably been called an oriental ogre instead.

Number 8

Herd Animal is very bland. About the only way they could have gotten any less descriptive is to just call it an animal. It isn’t even helpful on stats the whole block is pretty much dashes and nil with the hit dice being 1-5.0 So these “Herd Animals” have anywhere from 1 to 40 hit points, thanks for the specifics Monster Manual. This creature falls into that category of “who would ever use it” with the dinosaurs. My personal theory is that Tom Wham was doodling during a boring part of a game and drew a cool giraffe chasing the party and everyone at TSR was like OMG we have to put that in a book!

Number 7

Another Tom Wham Drawing, Blink dog is a prairie dog that can blink. I’m scared, seriously I’m shaking. When you actually look at its stats it has a respectable block. It’s just the concept of fighting a monster that looks like it belongs in Paris Hilton’s purse.

Number 6

This one didn’t have a drawing it’s just a stat block and description. I get the feeling that they were trying really hard to come up with monsters for ocean encounters. When has any DM ever anywhere said “You know what I’m going to have them fight dolphins, now if only I knew how tough dolphins were?”

Dark Dungeons

If you've never read the Chick Tract Dark Dungeons, treat yourself to some christian right absurdity. Dark Dungeons I think my favorite part is when Debbie uses mind control on her dad to get him to buy her Dungeons and Dragons books. Clearly the writers of this one were more in fantasy land than anyone who ever really played the game.

This kind of misinformation really hurt the hobby of role playing back in the 70's and 80's. Its hard to remember back in the days before Google and the internet. I know this makes me seem old (I'm only 30) but back before internet fact checking this kind of garbage was a lot harder to do. Chick tracts and their ilk relied on misinformation and the gullibility of the public especially the religious.

You might be saying to yourself "what does it matter its just a stupid little pamphlet" but I have a personal reason to dislike this kind of thing. I was raised in a very conservative christian home and my folks freaked out when I started role playing back in high school. Their views were shaped by this kind of garbage and by people like Pat Robertson and Patricia Pulling (who wrote a book named Mazes and Monsters).

Dungeons and Dragons has been one of the most positive things in my life. It's an outlet for creativity, It's helped me make some of the best friends I've ever known, and it's a heck of a lot of fun. I have never heard of these "REAL POWERS" they keep insinuating and the thought of having real spells to cast in real life is about as stupid as saying that someone who plays Call of Duty is trained as a commando.

The Shadow Rift of the Umbraforge 1 of 3

Im going to separate out this module into three reviews. This first one Im going to talk about the setup of the module. Shadow Rift of the Umbraforge (dungeon issue #158 September 2008)starts out where the last module left off. The heroes have successfully defeated the orc threat and receive their rewards from the grateful dwarves. The main plot of this adventure hinges on a key that the players discovered in issue 157. The key, unknown to them, is a portal device to a gateway to the shadow fell in the city of overlook. The story behind this is that there is a shady arms dealer named Sarshan that got double crossed by one of his minions to the orcs and now the adventurers are hot on his trail. Im not going to get into specific encounters on this post because the majority of the beginning of the module was role-playing focused with a skill challenge. I really like the skill challenges in 4th and I hope to run them better in future. During the skill challenge by strong arming, bribing, and cavorting info about this arms dealer the players eventually end up at a run down mission of pelor that feeds the poor. The mission is honest but the activities that go on under it in caves that exist below aren't. That's the start of the module, next post Ill get into the meat of this one.

Survey

did a survey over at http://easydamus.com/character.html apparently Im a 4th level NE halfling wizard

I Am A: Neutral Evil Halfling Wizard (4th Level)


Ability Scores:

Strength-12

Dexterity-12

Constitution-11

Intelligence-16

Wisdom-15

Charisma-12


Alignment:
Neutral Evil A neutral evil villain does whatever he can get away with. He is out for himself, pure and simple. He sheds no tears for those he kills, whether for profit, sport, or convenience. He has no love of order and holds no illusion that following laws, traditions, or codes would make him any better or more noble. On the other hand, he doesn�t have the restless nature or love of conflict that a chaotic evil villain has. Some neutral evil villains hold up evil as an ideal, committing evil for its own sake. Most often, such villains are devoted to evil deities or secret societies. Neutral evil is the best alignment you can be because you can advance yourself without regard for others. However, neutral evil can be a dangerous alignment because it represents pure evil without honor and without variation.


Race:
Halflings are clever, capable and resourceful survivors. They are notoriously curious and show a daring that many larger people can't match. They can be lured by wealth but tend to spend rather than hoard. They prefer practical clothing and would rather wear a comfortable shirt than jewelry. Halflings stand about 3 feet tall and commonly live to see 150.


Class:
Wizards are arcane spellcasters who depend on intensive study to create their magic. To wizards, magic is not a talent but a difficult, rewarding art. When they are prepared for battle, wizards can use their spells to devastating effect. When caught by surprise, they are vulnerable. The wizard's strength is her spells, everything else is secondary. She learns new spells as she experiments and grows in experience, and she can also learn them from other wizards. In addition, over time a wizard learns to manipulate her spells so they go farther, work better, or are improved in some other way. A wizard can call a familiar- a small, magical, animal companion that serves her. With a high Intelligence, wizards are capable of casting very high levels of spells.


Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus (e-mail)

Siege of Bordrin’s Watch 2 of 2

The second part of Bordrin's Watch picks up after the players rescue the dwarf paladin Kalad at the bottom of the temple in part 1. Kalad warns the players that if the vents, a system of caves under the mountain, aren't closed off that the orcs might sneak in behind the front and wreak havoc on the vale. The second part consists of six encounters and one skill challenge: entering the vents, gauntlet, boiler room, shrine to Moradin, dwarf quarters, and the nexus.

Entering the vents

This room is a basic 4 monsters versus the players, there is a couple ranged and some melee for combat options. The ranged also have the option to fall back into the next room as well. My players picked off the range early so this didn't happen in my game.

Gauntlet

I found this room to be interesting but in its printed state a little weak. The room is a long hallway with dart traps in the middle of the walls. In the printed version there are two trigger plates that activate the traps. In my version I filled the room with trigger plates and placed a meandering path through the room that was "safe" squares. This made for a fun and exciting encounter where the monsters were pelting at the players from the far end as they tried to get to them while darts were flying everywhere. I made the darts much easier to avoid then the original (DC 15 acrobatics or athletics) and a successful check moved you to the next square up to your movement rate. I made the monsters minions instead of normal and reduced thier damage as well since I wanted the trap to be the focus of the room. In its printed state this room is ok, but It was a lot of fun with these changes and was easily one of the players favorite encounters.

Boiler Room

This is a 2 level room with a platform with orcs on it and some beetles down below. There are vent pipes that run the length of the room. This is a dynamic looking room but more could have been done with the pipes such as having them vent steam that the players had to avoid or something. I ran it as printed and it was alright but not very memorable.

Shrine to Mordin

Small room with a troll. moving on.

Dwarf Quarters

My players skipped this room as its an optional room. Its set up to be a encounter where the monsters can run around and flank the players moving through three connected rooms. Might have been interesting though I don't know since we skipped it.

The Nexus

This is the climax room of the module. This map is huge, it took three full size poster boards worth of space. This encounter sounds cool on paper but my players found it very irritating. The way the encounter works is there is a pathway that winds around the room to a central control panel that the players need to activate to shut out the orcs. Each round more orcs pour out of six holes in the wall around the room randomly. My players found this encounter very irritating because the small pathway gets easily choked up with tons and tons of minions and its a slog to get through them all. The minions mostly missed my two defenders who took point going through but where I have a very melee heavy group they were only able to kill two minions a round with two more coming out every round. This encounter took a very very long time and was quite boring after a while. Part of the problem we had was my group make-up, they needed a wizard or sorcerer to clear the pathway with blast spells. By the end of this encounter my players actually missed out on important information that leads to the next module because they got up in disgust once the boss died. I was tired of it and so were they. This room is possibly the worst encounter we have run into yet.

Final Call

Ease of use: 7/10
Again easy to start up, the encounters are all fairly straight forward to run. this actually is part of the problem. I had to modify one room drastically to make it fun and the others were basically tank and spanks.

Difficulty: 4/10

All but the last room are fine on the difficulty curve the last is overwhelmingly boring to run and play if you dont have a character that can take out massive amounts of minions every round.

Originality of encounters: 3/10

Mostly run up and hit the monsters that don't do anything interesting type encounters.

Overall: 4/10
After the first part of Bordrin's Watch I was excited about this half and I feel it let us down. The last encounter was very badly designed and the others could have been better.

just got back

Just got back from this months game we played "shadow rift of the umbraforge" Ill review it later but all I've got to say right now is sword-mages are very annoying.

Getting Ready for Game Day

     In this post I'm going to take a break from reviewing past games to talk about what I do each month to get ready for the games. The first step is to read through the module once quickly, its ok to skim monsters and the details of the rooms at this point. You are really just looking for a general impression of the themes of the adventure. If you write your own stuff, which I have been known to do in the past, you can obviously skip this part. In that case your first step would be to write it. :)
     Second thing I do is get my maps and props ready. For modules I import the pictures into Photoshop and blow them up to scale and print them off and piece them together on poster-board. This makes your maps look really good and makes prep easy. If you don't have any module maps you can take a ruler and grid off 1 inch squares on poster board then draw your maps that way. Having your maps ready ahead of time really speeds things up. I used to draw them but it seemed like half our time was spent with me drawing and everyone else goofing around then I had to wrestle their attention back after I was done. Its always a good Idea to bring extra pre-gridded posterboard in-case you need to improvise a scene. I have a couple sets of the pre-made dungeon tiles these come in very handy for these situations. You can find those over at amazon pretty cheap.
     Third go through your minis and separate out the ones you will need into zip-lock bags for each room or if your module has specific themes like orcs or demons or whatever just grab all of that type of mini and put them in a baggie. Doing this will save you tons of time usually spent sifting through minis setting up rooms.    
      Lastly go through the module again in detail and check out each of the monsters abilities and think about how you plan to use the monsters. A well planned attack can turn a easy encounter into a challenging one and vice versa. I've had problems when I didn't think through my tactics enough and the monster that's supposed to be the focus of the encounter gets trapped by terrain or is bested by inventive players very easily. This cant be helped sometimes but a little forethought goes a long way in these situations. Here's a few pics of me prepping the maps for our game this weekend.